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Revision as of 20:55, 4 April 2013

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Your post on Jimbo's talk page

I have removed the external links from your post, and revdeleted all revisions that contained the links. Please don't restore them. I have also asked a question about this incident at User talk:Worm That Turned, and I thought it would be polite to let you know about it. ‑Scottywong| express _ 17:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Scotty. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:39, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

DC ... I actually agree with your comments at Jimbo's page, that we should ban certain users, but I'd tone it down. Bearian (talk)

That's probably wise advice. Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:58, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:04, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Not unexpected. Thanks for letting me know. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 23:17, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

When you were "making room" on your talk page earlier today, was it because you were expecting to need that room for the predictable shitstorm that would be created by your post on Jimbo's talk page? Just curious. ‑Scottywong| yak _ 23:20, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Who can predict the future? Certainly not me. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 23:26, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Edit Warring

I suggest you reread WP:EW if you seriously believe you were not edit warring. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:27, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

You've been an admin since June. Perhaps you should sit back and let someone else worry about this. Just a suggestion. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 00:19, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Talk:George Maharis#Re-add "arrest"?

If you are interesting in the George Maharis article, join in discussion on re-adding "arrest" content. --George Ho (talk) 00:24, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I am very interesting. Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 00:28, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you

I can't explain at the risk of 1000 arbitration cases, but hopefully you know what I'm talking about. Thank you. Ryan Vesey 01:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Someone had to do it. :) Delicious carbuncle (talk) 01:43, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:Child Protection "not on wiki" clause

Were you aware before your recent posts of this section of Misplaced Pages:Child protection:

Comments posted on Misplaced Pages suggesting that an editor may be a pedophile will be RevDeleted promptly, to avoid issues of privacy and possible libel. You should raise your concerns only by email; questions or accusations directed against a particular editor in project space may result in a block for the editor who posted them.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:29, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Not only aware of it, but agree with it entirely. When ArbCom shirks their responsibility for upholding that policy, however, I don't compelled to observe it. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:08, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

DC, where in that policy does it say: "Find compelling evidence anywhere on the Internet that someone may be a pedo and you can get them blocked on Misplaced Pages"? What you have been doing does not strike me as upholding the purpose of the policy, but trying to use it to act out your own personal feelings about who should be allowed to participate. That sort of mentality just encourages turning every contentious debate into a witch hunt and we don't need that shit (we already have it really, but we certainly don't need to encourage it).--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 04:38, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps you should direct your ire towards ArbCom and the WMF. I would prefer that it could all of been handled quietly and privately, but that wasn't an option. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:49, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

What you mean is that you wish they would just block who you want blocked so you wouldn't "have" to violate the rules to whip up a public frenzy against someone to get your way. That isn't really the same as not having an option. Simple question: why is it so important to get the person blocked?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 05:25, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Did you think to contact privately any of the admins who have discussed blocking such accounts before?

Can you explain your intermediate steps between apparent at first ignored private notifications and the big spectacle?

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 08:02, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

He says he contacted ArbCom, who apparently are in the middle of a dispute with WMF over who is best suited to deal with such issues. If ArbCom aren't, and the WMF decide to hide behind the sofa and pretend not to be in, why should some lowly other admin take on the responsibility? John lilburne (talk) 08:41, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

John lilburne has it right. It is not about this particular case or any particular case - this is one of ArbCom's responsibilities and I expect ArbCom to carry it out. I can certainly understand why the issue makes them uncomfortable, but, as individuals, they knew about it when they stood for election to ArbCom. Georgewilliamherbert, welcome to the show, but you arrived rather late - perhaps someone will fill you in on what you've missed over the past months. Perhaps ArbCom will be more communicative with you than they are with me? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:21, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I may be missing something, but I think you misread the policy.

Any admin can and should block upon becoming aware, and then privately notify Arbcom for any appeals that may be made. Arbcom and the WMF arguing about whatever should only be affecting unblock appeals.

Am I understanding you correctly that you only went straight to Arbcom?

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 16:10, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

You need to read the policy again. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:26, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I helped write the policy, and have implemented it on several occasions. "When an editor is blocked for such conduct, the blocking administrator is instructed to use neutral block summaries, and disable the editor's ability to edit their talk page as well as their access to the on-site user email interface. Blocking administrators should inform the blocked editor that any appeals or further discussion may be addressed only to the Arbitration Committee at arbcom-appeals-enlists.wikimedia.org, and then notify the Committee immediately."

Yes, that's prefaced by: "Reports of editors engaging in such conduct should be made to the Arbitration Committee for further action, and should not be the subject of community discussion, requests for comment or consensus. ". That's intended to avoid someone bouncing a request out on a noticeboard or the like. But it's been a semi-regular occurrence that someone pointed it out privately to an admin, the admin blocked and notified Arbcom.

It's been a couple or three years since the last case I took action on but if you'd showed me that info privately I would have acted here. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 19:13, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

The policy states in two places that reports of such cases should be directed to ArbCom. Admins can act and inform ArbCom, but there is no indication in the policy that anyone outside of ArbCom should be the first point of reporting. Blocks under this policy are appealed to ArbCom. That you helped write the policy notwithstanding, this policy is ArbCom's responsibility. It is good to know that you would have blocked this user, but that does nothing to alleviate my concerns that the body to whom editors are directed to report these cases chose not to act in this case (and in the earlier cases I have documented). Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:25, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I am coming to see from this discussion and the various discussions on ANI that your interpretation and understanding seems fairly common if not the usual one. Which would seem to create a problem if most everyone reads it that way and messages only into the Arbcom main mailing list with significant delay.

I am leaning towards a policy and process change being necessary for this. But I'm not sure which one. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 19:32, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Delay is not the issue. Inaction is the issue. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:34, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

ArbCom members have since stated that they were looking at it (I believe, I don't have diffs). Had they sent you an email telling you they were looking into it? If not, that might be the change that is needed. Ryan Vesey 20:41, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Specific to the "inaction is the issue" - While I sympathize with much of this, THIS part is not your call.

If you're an admin, it is - you're empowered by the policy to (privately in the non-public sense) assess and investigate the situation, if you feel there's a policy violation then block and report to Arbcom based on your judgement. Or you can punt to Arbcom with just a report.

If you're Arbcom, you're empowered to (again, privately in the non-public sense) investigate and assess and if necessary block, based on their evidence and discussions.

The policy is in place for a reason - in cases of false or mistaken accusations, there is essentially no possible recourse from the public accusations.

If I had looked at this and come to the conclusion that you were wrong - i.e., this person was in no way credibly holding or advocating those views - I would indef block you myself for having done that much damage to their reputation. It would likely be reduced on appeal, but I doubt the block would have been controversial.

Delay is clearly an issue and lack of communications is a issue. But in saying "inaction is the issue" you're essentially acting as judge, jury, and executioner. Which normal users are not authorized to do in these cases.

A case can be made that you should be indef blocked anyways, on the grounds that even if in this case you're evidently right about them (IMHO), we should not be selective about enforcing the clear policy not to discuss these on-wiki, because it sets up a precedent that will utterly destroy someone's innocent life sooner or later.

Under the circumstances, with an evidently guilty party, a community discussion underway and Arbcom highly aware and Jimmy highly aware, I leave it to the community processes et al.

Somewhere in here, attempting to forcibly assert the conclusion to the investigation crosses over into disrupting Misplaced Pages to prove a point. And, again, if this guy wasn't self-evidently guilty, your damage to his reputation would be grossly inappropriate.

Such as, say (as a hypothetical only), there might be two Norwegians of the same or similar names, one of whom is not a child sexual predator but thinks the laws against them are silly, and the other one who is a semi-out actual child abuser. Accusing the first of being the second and being an abuser would be a permanent stain on his reputation.

Again, I don't think that's what happened here, that's just a hypothetical. But it's the sort of thing that the investigation needs to make an effort to get right, and until it's resolved the investigation should for good reasons be private.

Or, in another common case on-wiki, someone who stridently believes a reasonable age of consent should be 16 (which it is, legally, in 30 US states, at least according to our article) or 15 (which it is, legally, in much of Europe, again based on our articles) or 14 (which it is, legally, in much of the rest of Europe), or even 13 (Spain, some other countries around the world) is taken to be a child abuser by someone, who reports them for CP violation, when they in fact are just supporting or agreeing with a position supported by laws in a number of countries and US states.

There are a range of nuanced views in here, some of which are mainstream some of which are fringe some of which are actual advocacy of adult-child sex. Only the latter are actually CP violations and blockable.

It takes a lot of review and due dilligence.

I think you're correct on this case, but would not act without a long review (days of effort).

Arbcom is predictably more deliberative than that. For good reason. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:24, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Let me see if I understand what you are saying. I am not qualified to decide who should be banned under this policy. Anyone who has passed an RfA and become an admin is qualified to make that judgment, subject to review by ArbCom, who are just editors elected by the community and are therefore the most qualified to make these determinations. Yes, I know, you didn't say "qualified" you said "empowered", but I think you get the point. Don't get me wrong, I understand what you are saying and agree with much of it. Incidentally, I think your choice of "someone who stridently believes a reasonable age of consent should be 16" is a terrible example. For one thing, I don't think that they would be likely to be accused of advocacy of pedophilia, and, for another, being "strident" about anything implies advocacy, which is a problem in itself. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:01, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

The question of qualification has never been properly answered. Most editors and admins personally are uncomfortable enough with the issue to shy away from it.

Empowered was used for a reason. Whether the power is then not used, used appropriately and with good judgement, or abused is a separate issue. The policy was specific in not empowering everyone on this matter, due to the sensitivity and impact of possible false accusations.

I have not seen a gross mistake made by an admin doing this, and I presume Arbcom would privately counsel, warn, or sanction someone who abused it. But I don't know if that's happened.

We both agree that there exists a problem and it has to be dealt with somewhere, by someone. Arbcom's position of old was that they asserted authority over appeals and that admins could act, and the topic was touchy enough that public discussion of incidents was prohibited; that was codified by the policy, which among other things made it enforceable.

My point is, we need to be clear on the difference between "someone seems to have made the correct ID here" and "we want large public debates and accusations by anyone in the future". If what you just did becomes the norm for behavior, someone WILL ge falsely or mistakenly accused, and the usual lynch mob behavior against accused pedophiles will do irreperable damage to reputations. It will not matter that your ID will have been correct; it will have undermined policy and allowed that future miscarriage of justice and fairness to happen by creating an environment tolerant of those types of discussions and acusations being made fully public.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:39, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I should have said this as well - I don't feel you're not qualified. I don't know if you are or not; I don't know your background, etc. On the specifics in this case, on brief to moderate examination, you seem to have found evidence and concluded in a reasonable manner. I think the policy and community limiting empowerment to act on findings is the point. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:42, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Off the top of my head I can think of one case where an editor was wrongfully blocked for suspicion of pedophilia advocacy. I can also think of one case where an editor protested quite strongly about their block with the defence that they were a legitimate author and "researcher" (although I think that block was more than justified). I am sure that mistakes have been and will be made in both directions. Just to be completely clear, I am not advocating that discussions of this sort be held in public or that these types of matters would benefit from community input. On the contrary, I fully support the part of the policy that states editors will be blocked for doing what I did. This doesn't mean that I think I should be exempt from such blocks, just that I am willing to be blocked if that's what it takes to draw attention to the situation. ArbCom did not act on any of the three cases I documented. Two of those editors are now blocked. If you haven't read the blog posts yet, read at least the first two (both are about the same user) and ask yourself what ArbCom should have done in that case. I think you will agree that they had ample time for due diligence. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 23:26, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I read the latest blog post and researched some; I am aware of but have not read the earlier ones and not researched them yet. As I said, admins dealing with these things are days of work... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 05:41, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Apology

My sincere apology for misreading the situation at Jimbo's talk page and having it colour my understanding of yourself since, and as such besmirching your name at ANI. It is no excuse for my inaccurate statement, but I hope you will recognise my state of mind at the time at the time I first read the note (the "further explanation" is linked there, I believe, if you've forgotten). That being said, I don't disagree with your goals, especially as related to child protection; it's just the means with which you and the community over there attempt to reach them violate my vision of civil interaction. I am fairly sure that, had we met under more favourable circumstances, I would have had a much different first impression of you.

TL;DR version: I've been an ass, sorry. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:05, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Apology accepted, but you should realize that there is a wide range of opinions "over there" at Wikipediocracy, even on this particular issue. Although I wrote those blog posts and they published them, I don't speak for Wikipediocracy. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:32, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

• Thank you for the clarification. I must admit my experience has been... less than impressive. I've already told you about my first experience with the forums at my talk page, although those I've checked recently have been much better. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:35, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	For a job well done. Darkness Shines (talk) 22:07, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Couple of points

There are a couple of points in all that has been written that deserve a response now rather than later, mainly to correct some misunderstandings on several sides. I may write more tomorrow when I have more time (having time and opportunity to respond in detail at the right point, and not hours later, is something that would also have helped here). The main point I want bring up here is one you mention here: "ArbCom and I have a relationship going back years. At times it has been more productive than it is at present, but I believe there is enough of an institutional memory in that group that Arbs know what to expect when they see a report from me."

What you may not be fully aware of is how fragmented this institutional memory can be. Some arbs are new, only elected this year or last year, some have been around for years, one (me) was around in 2009 and 2010, but was not around in 2011 and 2012. Now, after reading what you said above, I looked up the e-mails I received from you (all from the mailing list), and I see three e-mail threads before my current 2-year term, one from August 2010 and one from December 2010. If you have been active in sending in e-mail reports in 2011 and 2012, it is not something I would have been aware of, and not something other arbs would necessarily have flagged up to the incoming arbs this year. What I do notice, on reviewing the three opening e-mails I have from you since my current term started, is that you adopt a tone of familiarity verging on contempt, especially in the way you sign off the e-mails (I would quote those sign-offs directly, but you might object). That certainly put me 'on edge' with regards to you, and I suspect other arbs as well. This may be one reason why arbs have been, or are starting to, 'tune out' your e-mails.

The other thing that likely happened here is that some arbs really were not around over the Easter weekend, or were slow to respond. I may have been the first to read your e-mail when it came in and seriously look at it, and I should have responded to you then; for failing to do that I apologise. Your e-mail shows up at Fri, Mar 29, 2013 (10:58 PM) in my records (timings should be UTC, possibly BST). My response (to the mailing list) was Sat, Mar 30, 2013 (12:33 PM), mainly reporting that I had done a search within my records on the username (though this would not have picked up anything reported in 2011 or 2012) and pointing out some earlier discussion from 2009, and pointing people at the diff from 2007 (which has since been pointed out elsewhere). The details are broadly what I stated in my post to ANI last night. I then left the matter and waited for a response from my colleagues (it is easy to do this when there are lots of other things competing for attention, and that is always the case with arbitration). This weekend was unusual in that it was noticeable that not many arbs were around (I can back that up with details if needed). Nothing was said on the matter between my mailing list post on the Saturday and a response on Tue, Apr 2, 2013 (9:38 AM) that stated that you had turned up on Jimbo's talk page and were very unhappy about this.

Of course this could have been handled better, but I hope the above helps explain some of the background. For my part if you had sent a second e-mail asking what was going on, I would have replied. You may still be unhappy with how this was handled, but can I ask that if you make reports like this in future, and get no response, that you please e-mail at least one more time asking for at least an acknowledgement that the e-mail has been received. If I am around, I will send such acknowledgements in future, though I can't promise instant action - as Georgewilliamherbert says above (and a lot of what he says makes sense), "Arbcom is predictably more deliberative than that. For good reason.". Anyway, there are some other points I want to raise (I think this comment has the timings wrong), but that is enough for now. I'll aim to follow up tonight, and am willing to discuss this as much or as little as you want. Carcharoth (talk) 04:27, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

This is why the WMF needs a dedicated point of contact for such issues. Somewhere where the person in receipt of such reports isn't influenced by the style of the report, or past antagonisms with the reporter, where there is institutional memory that isn't dependent on what a group of people may or may not have happened to have kept in emails, where procedural policies are enforced in the same way from case to case. It shouldn't be left to a group of elected volunteers to determine whether someone's past activity is contrary to child protection policy or not, otherwise you are being asked to determine what level of past paedophilia advocacy or activity is acceptable or not. I think that most people would agree that shouldn't be something that a group of volunteers deliberate on, it should be part of the official responsibility of the site's management. John lilburne (talk) 07:01, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I think this is a sound idea, although keeping ArbCom in the loop for investigations would likely be helpful since some of the users reported may have been discussed previously, as was the case here. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:05, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Carcharoth, being as frank as I can be given the circumstances, ArbCom cannot fail to have noticed that I have been pressing them on this issue for some time now. I am not styling myself as some magical detector of undesirable editors. We may disagree on some cases and that's fine, but through our interactions I have formed the impression that ArbCom is shirking its duty in this regard. (And now actively trying to fob it off on the WMF who are unwilling to take it on in a meaningful way.) I started writing the blog posts after I gave up on the usual channels. The first editor I profiled was a no-brainer. ArbCom was told and did nothing. That user was blocked after a second blog post, but not by ArbCom. I followed up by profiling a second user. That user has not been blocked (but I am confident that it is only a matter of time). If you didn't understand by this point that it would be a good idea to keep an eye on the Wikipediocracy blog, you missed your wake-up call. If the circus that erupted from an unrelated blog post there about a different matter didn't put it on the ArbCom regular reading list, I don't know why not. My most recent blog post went up 25 March. Did none of the Arbs see it? Did no other editor email you about it? My email to ArbCom was a courtesy. Just about any acknowledgement of my email would have prevented my posting on Jimbo's page. I recall having had this discussion before and being told that the process would be changed. I guess it wasn't. I have no way of knowing what's going on within ArbCom, but the observable actions do not correspond with statements made by Arbs. On a more personal note, if you are inclined to dismiss reports of problems because you don't like the tone of the emails, you should not have stood for election to ArbCom. Who did you think writes emails to ArbCom - happy editors praising the quality of the articles? I would hope that my "familiarity" is a refreshing change (and my apologies if my sign off of "warmest regards" was offensive to you). Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:29, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, please feel free to be as frank as you need to be and I'll do the same. I'll start by saying that I agree with what was said here (I read parts of the Wikipediocracy forum, but rarely the blogs), though it was probably best that you reverted that edit as multiple people piling into this discussion will make it much more difficult to get anywhere. And while we are being frank, the part of one of your e-mails that struck a strange tone with me (I wouldn't have called it offensive) was where you referred to yourself as our "devoted servant". That struck me as just taking the piss.

Having got that out of the way, part of the reason I'm trying to engage with you here on your talk page is to ensure that at the end of this we are both clear where things stand. One point I want to really try and get across to you is that your approach nearly always makes it harder to deal with things like this, it politicises the issues when what is needed is calm and dispassionate analysis and decisive action one way or the other (if you want to get the handling in the abstract changed, see my suggestion below).

Over the matter in question, we had actually got to the stage where support was slowly coalescing to take some action as a committee, but that possibility was cut short by the action that was eventually taken. This is because such action is either taken unilaterally by an individual arbitrator (rapid action followed by later review if needed), or following deliberations that involve more arbitrators (much slower). There is literally no way to speed up the deliberative process if there are not enough arbitrators around (and there weren't over that weekend). The point where things went wrong was not acknowledging your e-mail. So I have to ask you direct, if this happens again, will you be e-mailing us or not? If you are, I have said I will ensure your e-mail is acknowledged if I am around. Can you please, even if you don't respond to anything else, answer that one question.

Moving on to another point, you say "ArbCom cannot fail to have noticed", seemingly as if ArbCom have some group awareness. We don't. It is extremely easy for individual arbitrators to fail to notice something - not all arbitrators are keyed in to what is going on. Thinking that addressing ArbCom as a whole means all the arbitrators are listening to you is about the most common mistake people make. Some arbitrators are very definitely not listening to you (and to some extent, I don't blame them). That is part of the problem here. Given that this is almost never raised during elections, you need to ask each individual arbitrator what their stance is on ArbCom's role in enforcing issues such as the ones you raise. That will help more than anything to move things forward, rather than you conducting some campaign and saying you have 'formed impressions'.

And I think you are still making the mistake of assuming that all arbitrators are aware of e-mails you sent to the committee in 2012 - those elected in December 2012 (including me) will not be aware of those e-mails. The other thing I think you may not fully understand is the amount of other work we do (among other things, a case has just move to voting, and there is an appeal I am trying to get moved forward). This explains, though it doesn't excuse, why we don't always give things like your e-mails the full attention they may deserve. You may object to that, but as I've said, please send a follow-up e-mail first to try and get our full attention. It is not just you, that is advice I give to everyone. Carcharoth (talk) 20:55, 4 April 2013 (UTC)